My Wife, the Amazing Teacher

Last week, Dorene had her annual Christmas program at Navarre Intermediate Center. Now, you've possibly been to middle school programs before and suffered through them. Well, you don't suffer through Dorene's programs, you truly enjoy them. She doesn't just have the kids stand on risers and go through the typical Christmas songs. She does full-scale productions.

This year was no different as she put on a musical called "Santa Goes Green" which, as you can tell by the title, emphasized the environment. Her standout performance was by Mrs. Claus, by a student that is probably borderline autistic, but that just totally nailed the character. I guarantee you no other music teacher would have given this student a chance, but Dorene did and she was definitely the highlight.

Dorene didn't feel this was one of her better performances, although the rave reviews from fellow teachers keep coming in. My nephews Curt and Jonathan came up as Jonathan did a DVD of the program to sell and Curt manned the sales table.

There's something else that you'll notice when going to one of Dorene's programs, and that is the discipline. Her kids are not talking during the performance or being a distraction. If they are not performing, they are being quiet, which is quite an accomplishment for middle school kids.

In fact, earlier this week, Dorene herself was surprised when all her kids sat quiet and actually quite spellbound by a group from IU South Bend that did a performance for them at Navarre. What was the performance? It was an opera, and these middle school kids didn't make a peep the whole time.